I don't think business is a good excuse anymore. Horizon Zero Dawn sold 10 million copies while staring a woman, and featuring a very diverse supporting cast. Star Wars is selling millions of tickets while staring a woman. Why do the games need to rely on a white male lead to succeed? Also to restate something that has been repeated numerous times on this thread, people are saying they are disappointed the game is staring a bland looking white male lead. That disappointment has foundations in both boredom with what is seen as a "safe" choice for a lead, as well as a desire fore better representation in video games.
You yourself are saying this character was made out of a craven business decision made under the assumption that white people would reject anything other than a white male lead.
I didn't say they would reject anything other than a white male lead, I provided similar examples to Horizon or SW VII like Battlefront 2.
I just explained why big companies make these decisions in that way based on their products or market KPI and metrics and not in racism, even if recently they include more diversity even if it may be risky for them because they try to enlarge their market and because they want to be politically correct.
In my personal case, I don't care about the skin color or gender of the character, I care about the character design, charisma and uniqness of the character, things unrelated to their skin color or gender. As an examble, Kratos or Nathan Drake are very cool characters while being a white male, but I see this Star Wars guy as a generic, bad character. Regarding Star Wars female characters, I think this guy's master character (as I thought about Amidala) seems generic and boring while I love characters like Lando Calrissian or Rey. (note: I'm a blonde/red haired white guy)
Isn't that worse? Doesn't that imply an assumed racism, or at least intolerance? How are people supposed to communicate their desire for representation if the industry to to afraid to provide it in one of the most marketable and profitable franchises available?
No, racism is that a character (or someone) is worse because of its skin color. And sexism is saying that a character is worse due to its gender. So saying a white male character design is bad because it's white and male is racist and sexist, as it would be to say a character design is bad because it's black or a woman.
To make the characters of a product more similar to the demographics of their main target user or main user group to make sure the majority of their potential users make an easier emotional connection/relate more to the characers because they are more similar to them is a business decision that makes sense.
This is also the reason of why the main characters of games/movies/tv series typically have the same age of the people they are targeting: products targeted to (because they are more consumed by) kids often have kids as main characters, products more targeted (because they are more consumed) by middle age women have middle age women as main characters, etc.
I think obviously it's ok for people to ask for being represented in their favorite products by saying "hey I want more black (or female) leads in games (or Star Wars products)!" but not ok to say "a character (design) is bad/boring/generic/bland because it's a white male" because it's sexist and racist.
I think a white dude can be a bad character design, generic, boring and bland or it can be great, charismatic character, this is what it's really important for me. And the same for people with other skin color or gender. And welll, same goes with sexual preferences. But at the same time, I understand that people may prefer a character with your same gender, skin color, age, sexual preference, hair color, etc.
